Everyone’s personality, regardless of their type, is founded on sustaining a separate existence from the whole. You cannot be your regular, daily self without being able to point at something that is not you. There is nothing wrong with separation and duality, in spite of what mystics may say, because it is through separation that unity blooms, pouring forth a thousand forms. More specifically to personality, it is through our consciousness of the universe that the universe perceives itself, and this, as I said, is only possible if the universe adopts our limited perspective through which it can explore itself, and without which it would remain blind.

This limitation takes place as we develop our character or personality, which involves us gravitating toward one of three centers of energy expression: Body, Heart or Head. Each center, as I discussed in the previous article, has its hub in one of the Enneatypes of the inner triangle: Nine (Body, Instinct), Three (Heart, Feelings), Six (Head, Intellect).

These three original types represent their respective center in a rather odd way: they don’t express the corresponding energy. Instead, they suppress it or filter it out. Type Nine, sometimes called the Mediator or Peacemaker, is a rather inconspicuous, self-effacing type, which is the opposite of the choleric drive behind our bodily urge for independence. Type Three, often called the Doer or the Achiever, seems at first anything but a feeling-oriented personality, concerned as it is with status, competition and practical plans. This seems to go against the Heart center’s urge for mending the bond between Self and Other. Type Six, normally referred to as the Skeptic or the Doubter, appears to be anything but oriented by a clear mind, caught up as it is in constantly catastrophizing and poking holes in its own certainties until all that is left is for it to blindly follow a trusted leader’s instruction. This seems contrary to the intellectual urge.

In reality, though, we need to understand that the Enneagram does not really tell us who we are, but rather what we have a problem with at our core. Type 9 has a problem with its bodily presence, and therefore seems unable to assert itself; Type 3 has a problem with its true feelings, and therefore concentrates on achieving rather than being; Type 6 has a problem with its mind, being unable to trust itself and its own thinking, so it ends up being rather irrational or unreasonable.

But what we deny we imply. I cannot say “there is no flower here” without implying the notion of flower, and therefore the possibility for a flower to be here. So, in each Enneagram center, we also find a personality type that asserts the center’s energy. These are the types that come right before the ones that suppress the energy: Type 8 (coming before 9) asserts the instinctual energy of the Body; Type 2 (coming before 3) asserts the emotional energy of the Heart center; and Type 5 (coming before 6) asserts the intellectual energy of the Head center. In short, 8, 2 and 5 are the types that you spend five minutes with and you know immediately what they are about.

Type Eight, sometimes called the Boss, is assertive, powerful and has no problem going out and taking what its instincts tell it belongs to it. Through Eight, the Body center finds the kind of unobstructed expression that it seems to lack in type Nine. The Other is often either acknowledged as weaker and therefore in need of Eight’s protection, or as a target to direct attacks toward.

Type Two, sometimes called Helper, is relational, caring, interpersonal and motherly, often denying itself to please or help. Through Two, the Heart center expresses itself in a way that is not possible through Three. The Other becomes the object of the person’s attention, in hopes that, by creating a bond with them, Two’s identity and needs may be validated.

Type Five, often known as the Observer, is rational, unsentimental, objective, detached, always willing to follow a line of reasoning to its ultimate conclusions, regardless of how subjectively unpleasant it may be. Here the energy of the Head center asserts itself as it could never do at Six. The objectivity of the thought-process becomes a refuge from the uncertainty of life and the fear it engenders.

As in every dialectical model, where there is assertion and negation there is also a mediation between the two, and this happens in the types following the hub of each center. In all three cases the energy of the center is neither asserted nor negated, but transformed, and redirected, in one way or another, toward oneself. In Type 1 (coming after 9) the instinctive energy of the Body center finds a mediated expression; in Type 4 (coming after 3) the same happens in the Heart center; likewise, in the Head center Type 7 (coming after 6) mediates between affirming and negating intellectual energy.

Type One, usually called the Perfectionist, is strict, precise, law-abiding, just, disciplined. It represents a mediation between the unbridled assertion of instinctual energy of Type Eight and the suppresion of it in Type Nine. In Type One, the idea is: I can assert myself as long as I do it in the right way, or rather, as long as I assert the right thing. In doing so, however, One submits itself to this pervasive idea of right, becoming its own harshest critic.

Type Four, often called the Individualist or the Romantic, is self-involved, introspective, reserved, self-conscious. It mediates between Type Two and Type Three, introjecting the energy of the Heart center to sustain its own moods and cultivate a self-image with which it seeks to flee inward and away from a reality it perceives as tragic, or at least as unkind and unable to recognize it as it truly is.

Type Seven, known as the Joker or the Epicurean, is fun-loving, energetic, excited, unfocused. It represents a mediation between the assertion of mind energy of Type Five and its suppression in Type Six. Type Seven is concerned mainly with self-gratification, and it uses the Head energy to come up with endless ways of feeling entertained, positive and energized, which leads to fleeint out into the world in search of pleasure so as not to acknowledge inner fear.

Type	Center	Energy Dynamic	Description
8	Body	Assertion	Asserts itself physically and attacks obstacles
9	Body	Suppression	Suppresses its own individual energy
1	Body	Transformation	Submits to rules that justify its own assertion
2	Heart	Assertion	Cares for the other to gain validation
3	Heart	Suppression	Performs and achieves to emerge as worthy of recognition
4	Heart	Transformation	Cares for itself to cope with tragic reality that doesn’t “see” it
5	Head	Assertion	Abides by own mental skills to avoid uncertainty
6	Head	Suppression	Seeks external support to avoid relying on own mental skills
7	Head	Transformation	Plans own gratification to avoid thinking about the negative side